The Author Spot is old-school in that we value hard work, honesty, responsibility, and integrity. It’s the latter I want to address today.
The Author Spot is a business. We have expenses. It costs a pretty-penny to license software, keep our servers secure in an environmentally controlled data center, and cover payroll for our staff. So we will not pretend to be skiddish about admitting we maintain multiple sources of income. Yes, we will recommend products and services from which we may receive affiliate income, and this is where integrity comes in.
As the founder of The Author Spot, I’ve noticed many service and retail businesses, as well as social media influencers nearly apologize for affiliate links. Others claim that in the interest of “full disclosure” they do not accept affiliate rewards for their recommendations. Why the hesitation? In my opinion, it comes down to integrity.
I’m not going to mix words, at the Author Spot, we need multiple income streams to support our expenses. Those streams, including affiliate programs, enable us to offer authors, like yourself, a platform where the bulk of technology tasks are managed on your behalf. The difference between The Author Spot and others who need to publicly announce their intentions through full disclosure, is that our integrity leads our decisions.
If we have an affiliate program, and the developers of that program redesign or change their service into something that’s crap, we’re going to call them out on that, and most likely drop their program until such time as deficiencies are corrected. Affiliate income will always take a back seat to the needs of our author members, and that is our integrity.
Our choices and decisions on what services to include at TAS, what 3rd party services to recommend, and what affiliate programs we add or drop, is solely based on value to our author members. It is our integrity, through which you can be confident that The Author Spot is always working to deliver the very best service and value to our author members.
If you have opinions and/or comments on this topic, please share them with us below.
And as we always say, “Go on and write, we’ll handle the tech”
‘Till next time – TJ
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TJ Culler is an author, reader, and an adventurist. She loves working at The Author Spot as an Author Platform Specialist. Her hobbies include hiking, camping, and driving her Jeep in the great outdoors. After publishing her first book in 2017, TJ discovered what a daunting task an author platform really was. She now dedicates her time to helping authors, like herself, who struggle with technology. |
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